


And I Would Do It Again

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: 'While the desire will fleet out of her mind in the next however many minutes, it burns steadily in Makoto, in the hardness in his stomach that fills his throat with smoke until his throat stings and his eyes prick. Byakuya shouldn’t feel like he has to hide himself away, but at the same time, Makoto dreads seeing him, to be reminded of what happened, what Makoto caused, even if that is what Makoto deserves.Makoto elevates his arm, touching the curtain with his fingernails. It quivers. He bites his lip and lets his arm slump to his side.'Naegi visits his friends in the hospital. An AU where the other survivors sustained more permanent damage after what they went through.





	

Makoto gently pushes the door and steps into the hospital room. In total, there are six beds, three spaced out against one wall and another three opposite them. The first pair of eyes he locks onto belong to Aoi, her face framed by unbrushed hair. She furrows her brow and draws on her palm with her other hand’s index finger. He waits as she chews on her bottom lip, as she looks down, as more time passes.

Yasuhiro, wearing a blue-grey t-shirt identical to the one that Aoi has on, happens to glance up from his book, and flits from Makoto to Aoi.

“It’s Naegi-chi!” Yasuhiro calls from the bed across the room to her. His bed matches Aoi’s, off-white frame, starch white sheets and all, and it matches the other beds too, and Makoto knows that the bed at the end of Yasuhiro’s row with a sapphire blue curtain drawn around it also has the same bedding set.

Aoi’s eyes widen. Her face lights up. She punches her palm and says, “Naegi!”

A laugh that quickly trails off follows and she writes his name onto her hand with her finger three times.

“It was on the tip of my tongue,” she promises.

“Yeah,” says Makoto. He walks over to her bed and presents Aoi with a box.

She puts aside the photo album on her lap and peels off the flimsy cardboard lid of the box. Seeing the donuts inside causes her grin to widen and she bites into one right away, chewing and moaning enthusiastically.

Yasuhiro cranes his neck and shouts, “Hey, are those donuts?”

Aoi nods and says something that she means to be, “Yep!”

Makoto turns to Yasuhiro and raises both of his hands at the same time, so they hover level with his armpits, and taps the tip of his index fingers against the same hand’s thumbs twice.

“Mind if I have one?” yells Yasuhiro. He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m getting kind of sick of hospital food!”

“You don’t need to shout,” says Aoi, pulling a face.

Makoto performs the same action with his hands as before, then he picks a donut out of the box and brings it over to Yasuhiro.

“Thanks, Naegi-chi!” Yasuhiro holds out his left hand, palm down and fingers pointing to the right. He chops the back of that hand with his right hand and when he raises his right hand after, he forms it into the shape of a gun with its barrel pointed at Makoto.

“Is anyone else coming to visit today?” asks Aoi, on her second donut. “It gets lonely with just him around... especially because he ignores me most of the time.”

She folds her arms over her chest and pouts cutely. Meanwhile, Yasuhiro takes the donut from Makoto and shoves it into his mouth. A few crumbs tumble down his chin. Makoto tears his gaze away after Yasuhiro’s second mouthful and peers over at the bed beside Aoi’s, where the blanket lies in a pile and a corner of the pillow hangs off the bed.

“Kirigiri-san should be back from seeing her physiotherapist in an hour or so,” Makoto tells Aoi. She doesn’t reply. He stretches out a smile. “You know, Kirigiri-san. Violet hair, has a braid...”

Aoi claps her hands. The sound makes Makoto blink, but Yasuhiro doesn’t so much as falter. “Oh, right! Kyouko-chan! I know Kyouko-chan.”

Makoto hardens his features lest his smile crumbles and his facade slips off, and his eyes dart over to the curtain around the bed in the corner of the room, in the same row of beds as Yasuhiro. He clutches Yasuhiro’s upper arm and shakes.

Yasuhiro only manages to blurt one syllable before Makoto tears his eyes away from the curtain and holds a finger up to Yasuhiro’s face. Splutters spill from Yasuhiro but he falls silent in seconds. Looking at each other, Makoto retracts his finger, positions it against his own lips and shushes.

“What’s up, Naegi-chi?” Yasuhiro asks above a whisper.

“You’re getting crumbs everywhere,” says Makoto for Aoi to hear. He lowers his hand from his mouth, balls it into a fist with only his index finger sticking out, and draws a horizontal line that travels outward.

The bed creaks as Yasuhiro shifts his weight. His face scrunches slightly as he folds his arms over his chest, and he shoots a troubled look at the curtain around the bed at the other end of his row.

Makoto tilts his head to one side. Yasuhiro meets his eyes for a moment before averting his pair and shaking his head, and Makoto’s heart clenches.

It stays clenched as Makoto rises from the bed, as he ignores how Yasuhiro reaches for him, and it stays clenched as Makoto drags himself over to the curtain.

He stops beside it and stares at its ripple folds.

“Hey, Togami-kun,” says Makoto. “Are you awake?”

Though he doesn’t receive a reply, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anyone in there. Or that whoever might be in there is asleep. Someone sleeping through all the noise would be a feat. Makoto turns to Yasuhiro, who watches warily as Makoto draws the same horizontal line in the air as before.

“Togami-chi’s having a nap! Even when he’s well-rested, he’s grumpy, so it’s best not to disrupt him!” Yasuhiro tells Makoto.

A flutter stirs in Makoto’s chest. He lingers there for a bit longer, but ultimately, he walks over to the bed adjacent to Yasuhiro’s and sits down with a slouch.

“What, is someone in there?” asks Aoi, leaning her body side to side as if she might come upon a gap in the curtain that she can glimpse through. By now, she has emptied her box of donuts and placed it beside her in favour of having the photo album on her lap again.

“Yeah. Togami-kun,” says Makoto.

Aoi frowns. “How long has he been here for?”

Makoto squeezes his hands together. “As long as you.”

“Oh!” She raises her eyebrows and flicks to a different page in the album. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

He can’t see what she’s pointing at so he shuffles over. Aoi wiggles over to make room for him. As he settles beside her, he hears footsteps, and Yasuhiro props a leg onto the bed, flanking Aoi’s other side.

“That’s Togami-chi,” says Yasuhiro, studying the photograph of Byakuya where he glowers in stark contrast to the grinning face of Yasuhiro beside him.

In the photograph, Yasuhiro has one of his arms slung over Byakuya’s shoulders, and behind them is the cream wall of one of Future Foundation’s offices. Makoto remembers taking the photograph, and how Aoi had told Byakuya to stop scowling, and how Touko had scolded Aoi and Kyouko shook her head at them, and how when Makoto peeked over at her, he saw Kyouko fighting to prevent the corners of her lips from curling in fondness.

“Why is his curtain like that?” asks Aoi.

Yasuhiro can’t be depended upon to answer her question, so Makoto gulps and says, “He’s... tired.”

“From doing what?”

“Just tired. From physiotherapy.”

Aoi purses her lips, pushes the album onto Makoto’s lap and crawls to the end of her bed. He realises what she plans to do, but by then, she has crossed half of the room.

“H-Hey, Asahina-chi!” Yasuhiro hurries over. Behind him, Makoto scrambles off the bed, almost falling off face first in his haste.

She stops next to the curtain but doesn’t pull it aside, and she doesn’t react as Yasuhiro lays a hand on her shoulder.

Makoto catches up, bends his knees and presses his hands against his thighs.

“Togami-chi will come out when he’s ready, ‘right?” says Yasuhiro loudly.

“Ready?” Aoi blinks. “What do you mean by ready?”

Yasuhiro shakes Aoi’s shoulder gently. “Why don’t you show me some photos of you and Oogami-chi together?”

Her shoulders sink.

“Okay,” she mumbles, letting Yasuhiro guide her back to her bed. On the way over, she looks over her shoulder briefly, like the curtain might rustle and Byakuya will emerge. It doesn’t. He doesn’t.

While the desire will fleet out of her mind in the next however many minutes, it burns steadily in Makoto, in the hardness in his stomach that fills his throat with smoke until his throat stings and his eyes prick. Byakuya shouldn’t feel like he has to hide himself away, but at the same time, Makoto dreads seeing him, to be reminded of what happened, what Makoto caused, even if that is what Makoto deserves.

Makoto elevates his arm, touching the curtain with his fingernails. It quivers. He bites his lip and lets his arm slump to his side.

“I’m sorry, Togami-kun,” he says, and he hangs his head.

The absence of a reply rings between his ears.

It isn’t just Byakuya that he’s sorry to but everyone, all of his friends. Makoto clenches his jaw and marches over to the door.

“Where are you going?” asks Aoi from her bed, photo album shared between her and Yasuhiro.

“I need to get some air,” says Makoto.

“Naegi-chi!” Yasuhiro pipes up. “Don’t be too hard on yourself!”

To Makoto’s relief, the hallway is otherwise deserted, so no one sees his back slide down the wall to as low a level as possible. On the floor, he hugs his legs to his chest, and he shuts his eyes.

Time passes in a fuzzy manner that’s static in his head, like the buzz of artificial lighting or a fly circling some carcass. His shoulders tremble.

After a while, he hears squeaking, but he doesn’t look up.

“Hey, Makoto,” comes a voice.

Makoto lifts his head at that. The sight of pale legs greets him, with white plimsoles resting on the black footrests of a wheelchair. He swims up to a face with one purple iris. A medical eye patch conceals the other eye, but that eye isn’t purple. What is purple on that side is the tinge to the skin on the left half of the face. It used to be more prominent, and though it has faded somewhat, it hasn’t gone away.

Perhaps it never will.

“Are you feeling okay?” asks the person behind the wheelchair, Komaru. His sister.

“Y-Yeah.” He stands up slowly. “Kirigiri-san, I thought you wouldn’t be back until later.”

“We didn’t finish that early,” Komaru informs him, and because he lost sense of time out here, he can’t disprove her. “The physiotherapist gave her a massage and Kyouko-chan did some ambulation exercises. She held onto these bars, and managed to walk a few steps!”

Makoto smiles at Kyouko. “That’s great!”

Komaru nods. “Yeah, and she’ll be starting speech therapy next Tuesday.”

“That’s great,” he repeats.

Kyouko’s forehead creases, but Makoto pretends that he hasn’t noticed.

“So how are the others doing?” asks Komaru with enviable brightness.

“Asahina-san really likes the photo album, and Hagakure-kun’s picking up sign language surprisingly quickly,” says Makoto.

“What about lipreading? Not everyone’s going to know sign language.”

“He’s working on that too,” Makoto replies.

“And what about Togami-kun? Togami-kun had his operation a few days ago, didn’t he?”

Makoto hesitates and glances at the door. “Togami-kun hasn’t been feeling sociable lately. He only comes out to go to physiotherapy.”

“I thought so,” Komaru admits. She grips the handles of Kyouko’s wheelchair tighter. “Please don’t tell anyone, but Touko-chan sometimes sneaks here to visit him in the night and she says that he hasn’t been himself.”

These supposed visits are all news to Makoto, but then again, who else could know? Who else could tell him about them? Yasuhiro hasn’t been able to hear since the explosions and gunfire outside of Future Foundation's hidden off-shore facility, Aoi hasn’t been able to remember much since receiving a full dosage of Ryouta’s brainwashing video, and Kyouko hasn’t said much since she came out of her poison-induced coma.

It’s a blessing that the others who saw the video, like Komaru and Touko, had viewed a weaker version than Aoi. As for Byakuya, it makes sense that he hasn’t been himself. After all, his legs and right arm were replaced by robotic limbs after they were crushed under rubble. He’s missing a fair amount of his original self.

“Do you think he’s hiding away because he feels like a freak? Being part robot?” asks Komaru.

“No.” The thought nearly makes Makoto snort. “Togami-kun’s not that sort of person. I think... if he was ashamed, it would be because he walked into a trap.”

And he walked into it because Makoto contacted him for help.

“Touko-chan said he didn’t feel pain when he lost them,” says Komaru despite no one asking. “She said he said that he felt warm.”

Makoto wants the vinyl flooring to swallow him whole.

“Are you coming in?” asks Komaru.

He takes a moment to realise what she means. “Ah, no. I’ve already seen them, and I’m pretty tired. I thought I’d head home for the day.”

“Oh, okay.” Komaru shrugs. “I’ll see you later then? Don’t forget you promised to take me out for lunch after your group therapy tomorrow.”

“I’ll remember,” he says.

She lets go of the wheelchair and reaches for the door.

However, before she can open it, Kyouko croaks, “Not your fault.”

Makoto flinches.

“... Thanks, Kirigiri-san,” he says, waiting for Komaru and Kyouko to enter the hospital room before he punches the wall. Pain streaks up his arm and leaves behind a throbbing sensation, but that will pass by the end of the day.

Some things take longer, but he will see them to the very end.


End file.
